Dream Trap

Something funny happened in a dream the other night. I was exploring a cave with a fairly large group of people. It was, ostensibly, Clay Cave, a real world cave that I've been in two or three times. We stopped in a little restaurant in the cave called Hazel's Nook.

Hazel's Nook is the name of a real restaurant, but it's nothing like this place. The name was probably in my head because I had been looking at a novelty map of Gulf Shores earlier. The dream version was kind of like an underground sidewalk cafe with strings of colored lights between the stalactites. 

Anyway, I realized it was a dream. Part of my reasoning was that obviously there wasn't a restaurant in Clay Cave and that this restaurant was really in the mall. Only, I was still confused, because, like I said, the Hazel's Nook I had been to was nothing like this, and not in a mall. Also, I have never been to a place that looked like this in the mall. That's not the best part, though.

I went around the table, asking the people with me what they thought the name of the place was because, if we were dreaming, we might have inconsistent perceptions. It didn't occur to me that none of these people were real. My dead brother said something like "rakes" and my dead friend rattled off a bunch of consonants that didn't spell anything (sorry, I can't remember what they were). A woman at our table who I didn't recognize from real life said this place was a trap and we should leave. 

Our table and a few other people from the larger group, but not all of them, left the cave and went exploring the hills, finding rocky trails to overlooks and oriental ruins and other cool stuff.